‘Change’ is the way of life… while some changes bring positive impact others create challenges that need to be addressed to adapt to the change. Realizing the need to rebuild the team for addressing future challenges, Ashim Das, the new CEO of Mehala is concentrating on a strategy to get the company back on track before it sets goals. “Thankfully, I have not been burdened by expectations or timelines; the clear strategy is to work towards making Mehala the topmost solution provider for the garment industry, but the pace has to be defined by how quickly we can recoup from the setbacks, by putting in place new systems and some best practices from my years of experience in another industry,” says Ashim. Efforts are underway to improve service levels and raise the performance bar of employees through training, motivation and incentive benefits.
Ashim has spent the last six months interacting with the principals, customers and the team, with the prime challenge to rebuild the team and confidence of the customers. “We have a very wide and strong principal base covering almost all aspects of garment manufacturing from ‘Cut to Pack’, but we now want to take the lead in providing multiple choices to our customers to reduce number of operations, manpower and time, thereby improving efficiencies by providing automation solutions, wherever feasible in partnership with our partners spread across the globe, besides adding digital printing machinery to our portfolio. A beginning has already been made in the area of providing automation solutions, with some installations in the past couple of months.
There will be an effort to woo customers who are more focused towards ‘value for money technologies’ with our in-house brand Orbito, this will however in no way challenge the market share of our existing principals, but will only seek to bring in a new set of customers who do not want to invest in high-end European/expensive brands. “We are also planning to further enhance our dealer network to penetrate deeper into the interiors where new manufacturing units are now coming up, with the new trend of existing and new entrants basing their manufacturing units in rural areas for easier access to labour force. And last but not the least invest more consistently on training to improve skills of the workforce and raise service levels offered,” informs Ashim.
[bleft] “Besides the changes in strategy to run the company, new sources of revenue are also being explored to financially strengthen the company like opening retail counters to sell spare parts for all garmenting machines.” – Ashim Das, CEO, Mehala [/bleft]
Mehala is quite strong in pre-sewing segment with products from Assyst, Topcut-Bullmer, Orbito, AMP Pisani, Venus, KM, C-tex, Human Solutions and Cosmotex. The sewing segment is equally well represented with technology from Siruba, Duerkopp Adler, Orbito, JAM, Murata, Tech Fighter, Schips AG, Yulun, Rimac and Queen Light. “We are reasonably strong in post-sewing with technologies from Macpi, Danish, Besta and Orbito Finishing machines. Our Efficiency Enhancement solutions are represented by INA and Rockwell Automation besides Damei, Lasser and Orbito in the embroidery segment. In the post-sewing area we are strengthening our washing department and looking to build a strong technology presence for the technical textile segment which is definitely the future growth area for the industry,” added Ashim.
Ashim is very upbeat of growth post-April 2013, when most of the new initiatives will be put in place. “With the FDA coming in we want to penetrate deeper into the domestic market, which is upgrading technology, besides winning back lost customers in the export business. Also, as a company we are the only technology providers to have a manufacturing background and now we want to build on this strength, and maybe look at producing our own brand indigenously in the future,” concludes Ashim optimistically.
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